Hung parliament

A hung parliament (also called a balanced parliament, or as a legislature under no overall control) is when no political party (or coalition that existed before) has a majority in the Westminster system of legislatures. If this isn't solved with something like a confidence and supply agreement or a new coalition, the largest party will have to form a minority government. This is bad because they can easily lose a vote of no confidence, so a government is hard to run.^{[1][2][3][4][5]}

The House of Commons of the United Kingdom after the February 1974 election. It is an example of a hung parliament. The Labour government (bottom) does not have a majority of seats, so it is a hung parliament. They did not make any agreement with other parties, so they had to start a minority government.

References

1. "Balanced parliament: No need to rush". The Guardian. London. 2010-05-05.
2. "SNP puts case for hung parliament". BBC News. 2010-04-20.
3. "Q+A - What happens if no party gets a majority in UK election?". Reuters. May 7, 2010. Archived from the original on July 16, 2018. Retrieved December 13, 2020.
4. Paun, Akash (2009-12-04). "Hung up on 'no overall control'". The Guardian. London.
5. "Welcome to the era of no overall control". Newstatesman.com. Retrieved 2013-12-27.